


teaching a caged bird to fly

by grandstander



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-16 23:36:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19328413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grandstander/pseuds/grandstander
Summary: Step out of your cage, learn to be free; lean to me, feel the ache in me.





	teaching a caged bird to fly

**Author's Note:**

> garen is touch starved asmr
> 
> this is a ship ive developed a lot with my friend mint and i wanted to write something further along in their Very Long And Time Consuming Development where sylas is helping garen learn to use his magic. hes also touch starved and gay. yee haw

Sylas’s hands were warm. His hands were very warm and they made Garen feel weak in the knees. He tried to focus on what Sylas said; to breathe in and out slowly, close his eyes, feel his magic move through his body and let his chest open up to let all that built up pressure finally release, but it was so incredibly difficult like this. Sylas’s hands were pressed up against his chest, calloused rough fingers brushing against the smooth skin of his chest just enough to feel a pleasant friction, and they were so warm, strong, wide palms that Garen wanted to melt into. He couldn’t focus on his magic or let it flow free when he felt his pulse jumping into his throat, when all he wanted to do was feel Sylas’s hands in the dips of his waist, on his hips, grabbing him and holding him. He wanted to take Sylas’s hands and hold them against his cheeks, melt into them and be held tenderly by his rough palms.

He tried to focus on Sylas, on his teachings, he earnestly tried as hard as he could, but it felt like his stomach had turned to jelly and his lungs were fluttering with breath in his rib cage. Garen kept his mouth tightly closed for fear of what suddenly born, fervent pleas he might make to simply be held in his hands, to melt against him, soak in the warmth from his body or for fear of his heart or for how weakly his voice might tremble in his throat. He felt like he was being pulled in and shaped under the hands against his naked skin, but he also felt like the touch of skin to skin sent pulses of electricity through his body, scattering his thoughts until he was all but disheveled and senseless within himself.

At present Garen was only being held together by a thread that was wrapped around Sylas’s finger.

“You need to relax,” Sylas repeated, his tone firm but encouraging as his hands pushed up along Garen’s chest, feeling the soft curve of muscle. “Breathe in,” he said, his voice softer as he exhaled. “Breathe out.”

Garen tried to do as Sylas told him to, chest swelling with breath, but he still felt a small tremble in his exhale. “I’m trying,” he stammered after that shaky breath left his lungs, his entire body quaking with a wild cocktail of excitement, eagerness, and nervousness.

He inhaled, slow and deep, tried to just feel his own body, feel the magic that had been so stifled all his life stir in his chest, but all he felt was butterflies in his stomach. There was this hectic sudden flare of his magic whenever he was excited by Sylas’s touch, like it was suddenly a vibrant opalescent array of colors that Sylas saw shimmer underneath his skin, but it came and went all so quickly. He could feel that sudden burst of magic, aching to move through Garen’s body, desperately pushing at the cage he had built of it to repress it all for so long. Sylas could also see and feel that magic suddenly retreat within Garen’s body, flickering wildly like the beat of a hummingbird’s wing within him in sudden flashes of color and pulses of warmth underneath his hands. Sylas didn’t know how to help him at this point; it was as if he was at the precipice of finally ridding himself of his shackles, but he kept stumbling back, then running forward, then stumbling back.

A soft sigh left Sylas as he watched Garen take those shaky breaths, seeing flickers of light shimmering underneath his skin every so often, but his eyebrows were pinched together and his cheeks were flushed. He wondered if this man even knew how to relax to begin with.

“Here, look at me,” he said in a low, warm voice that almost robbed Garen of the breath in his lungs and nearly turned his legs to jelly. Sylas pushed his hands up along that soft, built muscle of Garen’s chest, nearly caressing his pecs in an attempt to get Garen to focus on him and to calm whatever that fluttering anxiety was that hindered him. Unfortunately, Sylas seemed to be unaware of the duel effect he had on Garen in both making him melt and making him wind himself as tight as a spring with pent up aches for human contact.

When Garen opened his eyes, his heart nearly burst in his chest. If his mouth was open, he’s sure it would have leapt from his throat in the form of some clumsy profession. Sylas could see that very sudden and very vibrant flash of color, nearly blinding to him for the half a second he saw an aurora of colors flickering underneath Garen’s skin. He was genuinely stunned for a moment, bewildered by that sudden flare of magic he saw in Garen, then immediately confused by its post-haste retreat.

Sylas sighed again, his thumbs brushing Garen’s smooth skin in small circles, trying to make sense of all these conflicting surges of magic and what was causing them. It was obvious that something was troubling him, but he wasn’t entirely sure what. His hands splayed across Garen’s chest while in thought, feeling his smooth, warm skin and that comfortable amount of muscle underneath his fingers. He felt a flicker of something in his stomach, but Sylas didn’t really understand it. As his hands worked over Garen’s skin, he felt a trembling flutter of magic underneath his hands and the also trembling exhales that left Garen. A heavy feeling settled in the pit of Sylas’s stomach, but he ignored it for the time being; Garen and his magic were more important to him.

“Breathe and relax,” he said in that patient, encouraging voice of his. “Feel your magic, let it breathe, let it be free,” he continued, his rough, warm palms moving up and pushing lightly against the very center of his chest. “Stop trying to stifle it, stop trying to control it. Whatever it is that you’re scared of, you need to let it go.” Sylas pushed lightly against the center of his chest again, “Feel it,” he repeated. “Then let it breathe,” he continued, his voice soft and almost intimate in the last words he spoke as his touch softened again, his hands spreading over Garen’s chest and moving outwards in time with his words.

Garen felt such a tender, raw pulse of emotion through his entire body he thought he might stop breathing. Sylas’s touch was so reassuring, gentle and warm in the movement of his palms over his skin; he felt like those hands were pushing back all the armor he wore and truly stripping him down to just his bare skin and soul. Garen felt like his entire chest had been opened up, exposing his fluttering heart and the nesting birds that had settled in his rib cage while budding feelings had taken root in him. He could melt into this hands, he felt such a deep ache to take Sylas’s wrists and bring his hands up to his face to hold him.

He ached to be held, to feel Sylas’s hands holding his face tenderly, to feel his rough palms against his back, and all of that overwhelming need felt like it might burst from within him. Garen had loved and he had wished in the past, but he had kept it gently within the ivory walls of his body; but this, this felt like a storm rolling through his every vein.

He inhaled and breathed out, brows furrowed together in concentration while he felt this tight feeling in his chest try to spread through his body, like a caged animal trying to break free. There was so much, so much of everything that his thoughts tumbled into one another and were drowned out by the all of this sudden need that ran wildly through him. Garen wasn’t thinking with a sound mind when he surged forward, wrapped his arms around Sylas’s waist and buried his face against the curve of his shoulder.

Sylas immediately tensed up as soon as Garen pressed against him, wrapping himself around him and effectively pinning his hands between the two of them. His first instinct was to push him away to maintain space between them, but he felt a constant pulse of magic rising and falling within Garen, like the tide rolling in and out. What kept him from pushing the other man away was the fact that the light shimmering throughout his body was not quickly fading or bursting like it was before; although unsteady, it remained, humming underneath Sylas’s hands while their bodies were pressed close together.

“Garen—” Sylas started, but he was quickly cut off.

“Just— Just hold me for a moment,” Garen said, his voice weak and slightly muffled against Sylas’s shoulder. He sounded so tender and raw that Sylas couldn’t help but feel a pang of worry. He wanted to press for further answers, to try and push his hands deeper underneath all that emotional armor, but Garen sounded and felt so shaken that he decided against it. He had learned that there was only so far he could push Garen before he became overwhelmed. In this moment he wasn’t truly retreating into himself, either, he was trying to seek comfort from Sylas, so he swallowed his impulses and awkwardly shifted his hands to circle his arms around the other man’s shoulders.

The strong, solid, warm arms wrapping around him only made Garen squeeze his own around Sylas even tighter, pressing his face harder against the mage’s chest, trying to soothe the quaking feelings he felt. The warmth of being surrounded both made him almost want to cry and soothed that aching need he felt to feel a human body close to his own. When was the last time he had been held this closely, had the reassuring comfort of being surrounded and protected by another person? The only people he shared embraces with were his sister and the prince. He had gone so long without such intimate contact that he had grown numb to his own need, so deprived he did not know he was starving for it.

Garen’s arms shifted to an almost tender hold, finally relaxing from that desperate, tight hold they were in. His hands moved in soothing, small motions, feeling the the broad, strong muscles underneath his calloused palm and taking comfort in the body that he held and that held him. Finally, that turbulent sea of emotional began to calm within his heart, sighing against the rough, bare skin of Sylas’s chest as he closed his eyes and tried to relax. The anxious bursts of magic within his body finally mellowed to a constant, low hum that Sylas felt and saw as a soft array of colors that glimmered every so often. Being so close to him, holding the man and feeling that gentle warmth of magic bleeding into his own palms gave Sylas a new quiet appreciation for the beauty he saw in it. The colors shimmered and shifted like rays of light filtering through swaying branches, or the way a clear pool of sea water sparkled with light dancing off its surface.

Sylas watched in quiet awe as Garen’s magic finally rose to the surface, all these light colors shining under his skin, his own fingers beginning to shine white with tinges of soft colors from having instinctively soaked in the magic his body was closest to. It was beautiful, almost mesmerizing. It was so thrilling to finally see such an enchanting, gorgeous form of magic not be so stifled, to be free as all magic was meant to be. Despite how calm he remained, Sylas was proud of Garen for making such a step, even if his magic was a low glow for now, it remained consistently at the surface rather than wildly flickering when his emotions flared.

“Thank you,” he heard Garen murmur, his voice soft and gentle with his head turned to the side, temple resting against Sylas’s chest.

He almost didn’t hear the quiet words spoken to him while he had been silently marveling at the subtle beauty of seeing Garen’s magic breathe and move, but they were enough to shake the mild trance he was under. A low chuckle rumbled in Sylas’s throat in response, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips as he reassuringly rubbed the knight’s back. “Of course, Garen,” he answered, his voice a smooth, calm warmth that made Garen’s heart nearly melt in his chest.

How could one man make him feel so much, and so strongly? How could one man rage with all the fire of a dying sun and still speak with a poet’s tongue, his hands both strong and hard, but warm and gentle. Garen felt like Sylas could pull him apart any way he wanted to right then if he made the effort. He sighed again, closing his eyes and basking in the warmth of being held by him, his hands idly stroking Sylas’s back a moment longer before he gently raised himself. Distance grew between them, but Sylas’s arms still rested on top of his own, his hands holding Garen’s biceps as he looked down at him, his expression expectant with slightly raised brows.

“I’m ready,” Garen finally said, his voice even and calm, his magic still a warm hum that shifted under his skin. Sylas rewarded him with a grin, nodding while gently squeezing Garen’s arms reassuringly.

“Alright, let’s keep going.”


End file.
